Killer Pancake

“Yeah, she had some. I don’t know who they were. But she was here on a twelve-month visa, do you think she was just going to spend all day behind the Mignon counter and then go back to her apartment and sit around?”

“Julian, please.” I set a glass of cider in front of him. He ignored it.

“Well, do you think I knew her every move? I mean, come on!”

“Do you know any former boyfriends who were jealous of your relationship?” Tom asked.

“No.”

“Do you know anyone who could have thought of Claire as an enemy?”

Julian rubbed his brow so hard I feared he might bruise his skin. “Look,” he said finally, “I just know they were investigating shoplifting at the store.”

“Did she report any shoplifters?” Tom asked. He wasn’t writing. “No,” said Julian with a sigh. “I don’t think so.”

“What about these other men? Anybody shady that you knew about?”

“Claire just told me she’d seen other guys. But she also said she had admirers. Male admirers,” he added dejectedly.

“Who?”

“Oh, Tom, I don’t know.” Julian gestured helplessly. His bleached hair caught the light, and he looked suddenly childlike. “She used to laugh when she told me men were always after her. She said she was glad to have a glass counter between herself and them. One time she teased me and said she’d managed to get rid of the guy who pestered her most. But she was so pretty, I guess you’d have to expect …” He didn’t finish the thought. “And as for being bothered, well, sometimes she thought somebody was playing weird practical jokes on her at the counter—”

“Like what?”

“Like getting into her stuff, I don’t know … she just said some of her stuff was missing, that’s all.”

“Did she say that she suspected anybody?”

“No!” Julian snapped, and Tom backed off.

The oven buzzer went off and I took out the crepes. I requested that we put off the discussion of the investigation. Endless talk about crime can put a damper on the appetite. And we hadn’t even told Julian about Marla yet.

The crabmeat in wine sauce was succulent, wrapped inside the thin, tender pancakes. But Julian, who occasionally ate shellfish as part of his not-strictly-vegetarian diet, consumed next to nothing. He had gone from furious to sullen. Over dinner I broke the news to him about Marla. I tried to make it sound as light as possible, with a good prognosis and quick recovery.

Julian’s mood went back to anger. “What can we do? Is she going to need us to help her when she gets out? I thought heart attacks only happened to old people.”

I felt a wash of relief that he did not react with either a fit of despair or more shock. “Yes, we’ll all have to help. You especially, Julian, you know how much she adores you. And she’s not old.”

I shifted the topic to business. While Tom had a second helping of crepes, Julian and I pushed our plates away and did the final planning for catered events coming in the next three days. Despite the crises breaking all around, or maybe because of them, Julian seemed desperate to be preoccupied with food service. Maybe it was a way of reasserting control. Day after tomorrow he would do a Chamber of Commerce brunch, and we talked about preparing lamb with nectarine chutney and avocado salad. He even asked earnestly if he should be taking notes. I said no; the menu, supplies needed, cooking and serving times were all in the kitchen computer. I wanted to embrace him in his pain. But I had learned from Arch that hugging teenage boys is a precarious enterprise.

When we had finished eating, Julian made a pitcher of iced espresso, a drink we’d all taken to imbibing after dinner in the unusual heat. Since I’d had latte as soon as I got home from the banquet, more caffeine would surely wire me for the night. But worry about Marla and the events of the day ought to guarantee insomnia anyway, I reasoned. I set aside a covered dish for Arch, and took the brownies and peach cobblers that I’d stashed for the banquet out to the front porch.

I loved our porch, although the only time you could use it in Colorado was the summer and early fall. Mercifully, the evening air had complied. Savory barbecue smoke drifted through the neighborhood. As soon as Tom and I were sitting in the old redwood chairs he’d brought from his cabin, baby Colin Routt started to wail again from down the street.

“Poor kid,” Tom commented. “I just read an article about preemies. They have a hard life, all the way through.”

“Especially when they’re born at under one pound and their dad takes off for parts unknown,” I said.

Dusty Routt appeared in the tiny dirt-covered yard holding her little brother, or, more correctly, half brother, on her shoulder. She was jiggling the infant up and down, but the motion failed to comfort him. Then the mellow notes of jazz saxophone again floated out of the house’s screened porch, and the tiny baby was immediately quiet.